


This Mortal Coil

by AgentDonegal



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Andy | Andromache of Scythia Never Loses Immortality, As it should be, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Immortal Husbands Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, M/M, Minor Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Post-Movie: The Old Guard (2020), Whump, but it turns out okay I promise, kaysanova, losing immortality, spoiler alert: together, the whole fam is there at times but kaysanova/immortal husbands is the main focus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 18:53:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25890148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentDonegal/pseuds/AgentDonegal
Summary: On the day it happens, Joe wakes the same as he’s done well over three hundred thirty thousand times before. Nose pressed to the soft, sleep-warm skin of Nicky’s nape, arm slung adoringly over his waist. It gives him the option of pressing the flat of his palm to a steady heartbeat or to intertwine their fingers and, oh, the sweet anguish of decision.Joe smiles, nuzzles Nicky’s neck, snuffling through his grown-out locks. Ducks his head to Nicky’s shoulder blade. He presses his lips chastely to his flesh, not so much a kiss as a smile pressed into his smooth skin.There is a bruise on Nicky’s shoulder.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 51
Kudos: 641





	This Mortal Coil

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by two tumblr posts: One which pointed out (CORRECTLY), the only way these two can go out is together in a blaze of glory or together in Malta. Another which suggested a great way to learn of your mortality would to be to wake up with hickeys all over. It could have been light-hearted, and I promise it works out in the end, but it got...sad/dark-ish in a few places.
> 
> On that note, there is racism and homophobic slurs here. It doesn't last long and no permanent damage is done, but I get it if you rather go for pure fluff (even though, again, this turns out okay in the end). The Husbands are not possessive, but they are good at making sure the Hurt doesn't last long. Promise.

_You cannot possess me, for I belong to myself,  
But while we both wish it, I give you that which is mine to give…  
I shall serve you in those ways you require,  
And the honeycomb will taste sweeter coming from my hand…  
I pledge to you, yours will be the name I cry aloud in the night,  
And the eyes into which I smile in the morning…  
I shall be a shield for your back, and you for mine…  
This is my…vow to you_  


-Paraphrased from _Celtic Wedding Vow_ , Morgan Llywelyn

On the day it happens, Joe wakes the same as he’s done well over three hundred thirty thousand times before. Nose pressed to the soft, sleep-warm skin of Nicky's nape, arm slung adoringly over his waist. It gives him the option of pressing the flat of his palm to a steady heartbeat or to intertwine their fingers and, oh, the sweet anguish of decision.

Sometime during the night Nicky's toes, equal parts maddeningly and endearingly chill, tucked themselves snugly between Joe’s calves.

Due to obligation, missions spent with Nicky in a sniper’s nest for days on end or Joe deep undercover with various nefarious warmongers collecting intel, there have been nights spent apart. Thankfully, the number is small, absolutely dwarfed in comparison to the opposite.

There have been nights apart due to rage and pride, too, but not for many centuries, and not enough total to count on even two of their hands.

And whenever they’ve been apart, they reunite like the clashing of swords…

 _“Ya hayati, quickly—”  
Hands everywhere, teeth clicking, lips bitten red and buttons flying.  
“Ya amar, uhn, ya nour el ein—”  
The rustling of fabric being pulled down to mid-thigh, a zipper hastily undone.  
“_Enough _. I need you now, please, let me—"  
Gasps, hisses of pleasure and_ gratification _, slating the_ need _to prove their continued existence to each other. A single soul divided into two vessels and reunited in the most human, messy, and glorious of ways._

…Or the soft melding of surf meeting sand…

 _Three weeks, Joe’s been away. Five days and counting past the day he was due to return. Nicky isn’t nervous, exactly; he has faith equal to any other if something has gone wrong, he will just_ know _. He does not wait by the door of their safehouse in Tbilisi._

_Instead he spars with Andy or sits quietly with Quynh. He plays cards with Booker and takes long hikes with Nile, introduces her to the water walks and points out the beautiful nuances of Haussmannian buildings. The capital is rife with architecture, a mixture dating from the Middle Ages to the extremely modern and it is a joy to walk the streets with his sister in this safe place where they are both accepted and ignored._

_Every morning Joe is away, Nicky gets up before dawn to pray. He prays again four times more, every day, until Joe comes back home. Wherever his heart is, he is unable to do it for himself, so Nicky takes up in his stead with no complaint or second thought._

_And when Joe walks through the door, they do not rush to each other’s side. Their eyes meet across the room briefly before Andy is pulling Joe into her arms. Nicky silently retrieves the duffel bag Joe leaves by the door and deposits it in their bedroom as his heart laughs with Booker and inquires after the score of the football games he missed while away. Nicky starts dinner while Quynh and Nile circle their brother, sitting him down to hear about the mission and already beginning to make plans for the next._

_And when Joe’s warm hand briefly finds the small of his back as he’s plating dinner, Nicky turns his head to gaze into those kind, dark eyes. He smiles a little and Joe laughs warmly at a joke neither of them said aloud and they’re_ home.

Three hundred thirty thousand times. More than, and it’s as much bliss now as it was the first.

In those few immeasurable moments spent adrift in the misty expanse between sleep and waking, this is Joe’s only thought.

Joe knows by the pattern of his breathing, slow and deep, Nicky still sleeps. He considers drifting back, himself. He hasn’t yet opened his eyes and it would be so easy. There is no rush today.

Copley’s great-granddaughter, Lagresar, has been casting around for their next job. There is no lead on the horizon, hasn’t been for some weeks. Since Andy’s faith in humanity has been significantly restored—tangential exactly to Nile’s becoming part of the group and solidified by Quynh’s return—she is able to now regale them all with tales of similar times of peace. _Pax Romana_ , the nearly two-hundred years she and Quynh went into pseudo-retirement. Her gaze goes far away as they tell their little family of their travels back then, miles crossed only for the sake of each other’s smiles rather than with any real intent.

Progression isn’t linear, she explains, and right now they’re on the upswing. They’ve seen it before. They’ll be ready for when it lapses again. For now, peace.

They go their separate ways. Andy and Quynh stick to the deserts, mostly. Nile and Booker rent a bachelor/ette pad in the mountains.

Joe and Nicky, predictably, head for the coast.

It’s not Malta, but without opening his eyes Joe doesn’t much know the difference. There’s a gentle breeze against their skin from the open window of their bedroom, the early-morning cry of seabirds lurking around the nearby port for the fishermen to bring in their first hauls. The soft air carries the smell of the ivy climbing to their windowsill and the crisp salt-smell of the sea. It mingles with the earthy, primal smell of their clean sweat and easy love making hanging in the air from the night before.

A whisper of heat strokes at the base of Joe’s spine, sleepy and soft. It could be easily ignored. There is time later.

Joe presses his hand softly to the flat of Nicky’s stomach. Slides down so his fingertips are at the band of his boxers but no further. Over the years they’ve set their boundaries. He’s well within them, knows Nicky would not mind waking to Joe’s hand at the base of his cock, stroking him awake, but it’s not what Joe’s after. The ember low in his stomach may be smothered easily enough, but the sun which burns eternal in his chest craves Nicky’s attention. Anything. A sleep-murmur, the flicker of a smile, and they can drift off together again for a short while before rising for breakfast. 

Nicky shifts in his sleep, his breaths becoming a little shallower. His husband has always been a light sleeper. Even the gentle press of his hand—and more so the cool touch of his rings on Nicky’s skin—is probably enough to rouse him. Joe smiles, nuzzles Nicky’s neck, snuffling through his grown-out locks. Ducks his head to Nicky’s shoulder blade. He presses his lips chastely to his flesh, not so much a kiss as a smile pressed into his smooth skin.

Except his skin…his skin is not smooth under Joe’s lips. Joe’s dark brows furrow and he opens his eyes, long lashes blurry with sleep.

There is a bruise on Nicky’s shoulder. Next to it, the slightly puffy, broken skin of a bite-mark.

Nicky comes fully awake at Joe’s gasp, throwing sleep off like a blanket. He sits up swiftly, hands scrambling for the weapon he no longer keeps under his pillow before he even registers where they are, what decade they’re in.

“Yusuf? Are you okay?”

An ancient form of Ligurian falls from his lips as easily as Joe’s oldest name. He scans the room quickly to be sure, gaze cold and prepared for a fight, but sees nothing. He relaxes, but Joe has yet to say a word, so he is not quite convinced.

“Have you had a nightmare?” He asks gently, now fully awake and slipping purposefully into Arabic. He spins to face Joe, who is staring through him in a way which makes Nicky’s heart stutter in his chest. It’s the faraway, unseeing glaze those breath-taking eyes take on when he’s dead. Nicky's jaw clenches, cheeks hallowing as the muscles constrict miserably.

“Joe,” he says, trying to be soft because he can’t throw himself in front of a threat which isn’t physical. He lifts his hand, presses his fingers to the side of Joe’s head. The hair there is short, as is the current fashion, but still long on top, and Nicky longs to bury his hands in those tight curls. “Hayati. What is it? Please, tell me.”

“Nicolo, oh, my Nicolo,” Joe whispers wretchedly, “I will protect you.”

“Yusuf, I do not know why you are saying this.”

Nicky watches as Joe’s hand comes up. His fingers, normally so capable and strong, are trembling minutely. He presses at a spot at the base of Nicky’s neck.

He knows the touch was gentle, but there’s a deep ache, nonetheless.

Oh. _Oh._

“Oh,” Nicky grunts. Joe looks up at him, lips parted. Their eyes meet.

In his mind’s eye, _Joe sees Nicky come through the door of their safehouse in some little town he forgot the name of a century ago, somewhere in the Midwestern United States. It’s 1936. Andy has informed them war is coming. She can feel it in her bones. They all trust her, are all weary with the tension in the world. Booker almost never surfaces from the bottom of a bottle and won’t until they ship out. Andy disappears for days at a time. Nicky and Joe, they wait. They all do what they can. It’s what they do. For now, it means they wait._

_Nicky has gone out for groceries. He returns with nothing, a toll which includes his wallet and the oversized coat he’d left with. His white undershirt is stained red with blood and there’s dirt on his face._

_“What happened?” Joe asks. Nicky refuses to say._

_It is only until Andy demands to know that Nicky utters, “They were just children.”_

_He was jumped on the way home by a group of teenagers. Nicky could have killed them all, but he did not. He does not know they will be drafted in a few short years. He does not know three of the five of them are destined to die, anyways. He only knows they’re young and scared, and when they scream_ fairy! _and_ pillow biter! _at him as their boots pummel him into the ground, he knows their hearts are misguided and in pain._

_Booker digs the meaty parts of his palms into his eyes, sighing wearily. He offers to go back with Nicky to try to find his wallet. Nicky declines. Joe swears loudly but does not rage, does not make for the door._

_Nor does he let Andy, who immediately grabs for her Labrys. He convinces her to still her hand. Nicky, with dark circles under his eyes, goes to shower and change out of his bloody clothes._

_Joe meets him in the bathroom when he’s just washed the styling wax and blood from his conservative pompadour. Joe throws the stall door open and steps in behind Nicky still fully clothed. It’s small. There’s not enough room for them both._

_They do not care. Joe wraps his arms around him, presses his lips to Nicky’s shoulder and neck and whispers to him until the tension slips from his muscles. When they finally leave their little shelter, Nicky helps strip the clothes that cling to Joe’s body and replaces their clutch with his own. When Joe enters him, it’s sweet and safe. There is no shame._

“I will protect you," Joe says again, sounding lost.

“I know,” Nicky replies easily. He himself is ready to go to war to make sure his love is okay with the reality of what is happening, of what they always knew could happen. There is an ache like a sliver under his skin, easily and immediately pulled, which longs for another millennium or six with his Yusuf. However, he had always been the more pragmatic of the two. This time was always coming.

And Nicky is content to spend the next week, the next year, the next _fifty_ years, God willing, locked in this room with his Yusuf, pressed skin-to-skin, feeding him slices of tangerines and drowning him in his love as he greys and Joe remains young and beautiful. All the time he has left, if that’s what it takes to convince Joe it’s all going to be alright.

Nicky _remembers walking through the airport in San Jose, California. They’d just finished tracking down and dismantling a local drug ring and were set to meet Booker and Andy in Colorado for a connecting flight out of the States._

_It’s 2005. Joe wears a beanie and an Ed Hardy t-shirt. They’re walking side by side. Not holding hands. Not because they’re scared to, exactly. The times are getting more progressive, although compared to what, considering when they first met it would have been absolutely nothing to hold hands, to travel together. But the less attention they attract, given their current involvement in the area, the better. Besides, there is an invisible rope which always connects them, heart-to-heart, soul-to-soul. What is the secretive brush of hands compared to that?_

_So they’re not holding hands, and that’s why Nicky misses the exact moment Joe’s not beside him anymore. He hears the shout—not from Joe, from somewhere nearby—and turns on his heel. Joe is two or three steps behind, curls exposed, his beanie in the grasp of a middle-aged white man whose beady eyes are filled with palpable hate._

_“You planning to hijack the plane, huh?” the man spits. Actually. Spits. At Joe. It doesn’t quite hit, but it doesn’t matter. Nicky drops the bag he’s slung over his shoulder and starts at the man. He gets in this creature’s face, unblinking. There is no more rage in Nicky’s expression than one would imagine a tourist laid out on the beach with a cool drink in hand might have…except his eyes. In Nicky’s eyes, the stranger sees something so cold, so vast, for the first time in his horrid existence, he thinks there might be something bigger than him._

_“Nicky,” Joe is at his shoulder. He doesn’t touch him. He doesn’t need to. Joe’s voice is the only thing that would reach Nicolo di Genova right then, and it does. Nicky smiles a little. The man takes a staggering step backwards. Nicky reaches out and takes the beanie back without breaking eye contact. It slips out of the man’s hand like butter._

_Nicky says, “I’ll pray for you.”_

_They hold hands through the rest of their walk to the plane. They hold hands the entire flight. They are holding hands when they meet up with Andy and Booker. Booker raises an eyebrow. Andy asks if everything’s okay._

_“Yes,” Joe says. Nicky says nothing._

_Later, Nicky utters all sorts of prayers into Joe’s skin as they rock together, hands linked, Joe’s legs thrown about his waist as he cries out in his pleasure. Nicky takes him apart slowly, praising his curls, his faith, his poet’s heart, his hands for the beauty they grant the world._

These and a million other memories all come and go in the few seconds which pass between Joe’s discovery and Nicky’s realization.

Everything. After everything and more, to be separated? Unthinkable, and yet this is the fate which beckons.

Joe lurches to sit up. He must immediately slide his fingers along the line of Nicky’s throat. He must dig his hands into his chin-length hair and pull him in, whisper reassurances to him. He _must_.

Except when he moves, there is a dull ache in the small of his back which makes him fall short with a hiss. Nicky’s eyes track the flicker of pain, then shock, then joy which overtakes his love’s face. He doesn’t understand. He goes to ask at the exact moment his eyes catch the barest purpling of brown skin under the collar of Joe’s sleepshirt.

They stare at each other. Nicky smiles widely. Joe answers it with a full-bodied laugh.

“You did not think you were rid of me that easily, did you?” Joe says with a laugh that sounds so much like a sob and they tumble back together. Nicky uses his thumb to brush tears from Joe’s lashes. Joe captures his hand and kisses the salty pads of his fingers.

On the day it happens, it happens softly, as they always prayed it would.

Together.

**Author's Note:**

> Hyati, ya hayati: My life  
> Ya amar: My moon, the bright light shining on a dark night  
> Ya nour el ein: You're the light of my eye, you're the one who illuminates my universe
> 
> As usual, I tried my best to be non-problematic. I'm not a POC, nor am I a Muslim, so if I screw up please point it out to me. I try to educate myself but if I make a mistake, be confident it is unintentional and I will fix it if it is pointed out to me. Love these guys, and I love you guys!


End file.
